SEATTLE — Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is considered by many the smartest guy in tech, a fixture in the industry's Mount Rushmore along with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Google CEO Larry Page. He's also about to become the newly minted owner of The Washington Post.

Yet despite his high profile, he's been conspicuously quiet. Until now.

On Monday, Bezos sat down with USA TODAY to discuss new Amazon products, the newspaper biz and his stature in high-tech circles. But mostly he laughed, in his infectious manner, while touching on a number of subjects in a rare 40-minute interview here.

• How does buying The Washington Post fit in with Amazon? "The Washington Post really is very separate from Amazon. If the two companies can help each other, of course they would, but they would do that the way any two companies would if they could find some mutual (benefit)." Bezos added that it is "correct" to assume that to Amazon The Washington Post is no different than The New York Times or USA TODAY. As for the Post, he volunteered that he is open to suggestions on what the paper can and should do better. He volunteered, "You'll find I'm a very open recipient to such ideas."

• What are your thoughts on Amazon Studios, which produces original TV content? "We think Amazon Publishing and Amazon Studios are just good businesses in their own right. With Amazon Studios, we like to do something that has a twist to it. We're changing the production process. So for example we took all of our pilots and put them out ahead of time and let the entire community review those pilots. They were heavily watched and heavily reviewed, and we kind of picked our personal favorites. If we had done that as studio executives, what would we have chosen? That process changed our minds on what to go forward with. That's the kind of twist. They're going to work their way into a whole new process for green-lighting TV and movies."

• Amazon Publishing? "They're seeing opportunities to invent with the author as the customer. Recently, Amazon Publishing started to pay authors monthly instead of twice a year. One of the things authors will tell you is they like better data on sales and (would like to be) paid more frequently."

• On rumored interest in buying the All Things D tech site? He laughs. "I wouldn't want to speculate on anything there."

• Being on the Mount Rushmore of tech? Your legacy? "I think about the things we do as big team efforts … team invention. I'm flattered. But I don't spend any time thinking about it that way. I very much think about the future, and I don't spend any time thinking about the past. I'm having fun, and I love my job. I love the fact that we here as a team at Amazon have so many people counting on us, customers, shareholders, we count on each other. It's very motivating to wake up in the morning and know that there are a bunch of people counting on you and that they want you to invent pieces of the future — show me something new."

• On being a pitchman? "My very favorite thing is to sit with a product design team and talk about what we're going to do next. Being the pitchman, to use your phrase, is an essential part of my job, but I wouldn't want to spend most of my time doing that. I'm glad it's a spice in my job and not the main course. "

• On what's next — an Amazon phone, video game console…? "Roadmap questions I just can't talk about. But it was worth trying." He laughs.